Recap: Blues at Blackhawks 11.26.23

CHICAGO – Pavel Buchnevich had a goal and two assists for the St. Louis Blues in a 4-2 victory against the Chicago Blackhawks at United Center on Sunday.

Jake Neighbours scored twice, and Torey Krug and Robert Thomas each had two assists for the Blues (11-8-1), who have won three of their past four games. Jordan Binnington, who was pulled in a 6-5 win against the Arizona Coyotes on Wednesday and replaced Joel Hofer in a 8-3 loss to the Nashville Predators on Friday, made 32 saves.

“Full 60,” Binnington said. “Just the feel from the beginning to the end. It was a fun game. The rink was loud right from the national anthem, so it was fun. A fun Sunday afternoon.”

Arvid Soderblom made 24 saves for the Blackhawks (6-13-0), who were coming off a 4-3 overtime win against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Friday but have yet to earn consecutive victories this season.

“Disappointed,” Chicago forward Nick Foligno said. “I didn’t like our start. We talked about this. It’s building winning habits and understanding what those are. I understand in the sports world a lot of cliches get thrown around, like words, buzzwords, but there is a definition behind a lot of them. Commitment, that’s what we have to learn here. It’s just how to do it over and over again.

“Sometimes, it’s not fun or exciting, but it’s how you win in this league. We’re not over checks, we’re not reloading, and boom, boom, boom, they’re in the back of the net. We push back, get our game going. We get a goal, but then we just don’t sustain it. So, it’s a disappointing one because we really felt we were understanding of how we had success against Toronto, and we’re right back in the loss column.”

Neighbours put the Blues ahead 1-0 at 3:21 of the first period, scoring with a backhand on a breakaway.

“It was just a good play by the fellas to get the puck out of the zone,” Neighbours said. “I just saw that it took a bounce where I had a chance to get to it. We (Neighbours and Chicago defenseman Kevin Korchinski) kind of went neck and neck there. I just tried to shield him with my body and make sure I was protecting the puck at all costs. I just had a lot of speed, so just tried to go side to side.”

STL@CHI: Neighbours slides in a backhand on the breakaway

Kevin Hayes made it 2-0 at 5:27, receiving a pass from Jordan Kyrou in the left face-off circle and scoring with a wrist shot.

Ryan Donato cut it to 2-1 at 14:45, tipping in Isaak Phillips’ wrist shot from the right point.

Buchnevich responded for St. Louis with a power-play goal to make it 3-1 at 17:02.

Neighbours then scored off a pass from Buchnevich to extend the lead to 4-1 at 13:52 of the third period.

“We want to play this way,” St. Louis coach Craig Berube said. “We don’t want to give up the goals we gave up. We won the game in Arizona, but you can’t give up that many goals. Obviously, last game (against Nashville), we let it get away from us again. It was good. We tightened it up. I thought we did a good job on [Connor] Bedard (zero points, minus-1) tonight. He’s a good player, but I thought we kept him out and took time and space away from him tonight. I thought our ‘D’ really closed plays out early tonight.”

Boris Katchouk scored his first goal of the season on a breakaway at 18:58 for the 4-2 final.

“It was a little frustrating, I think, the way we just weren't alert or kind of aware tonight, and not a physical effort,” Blackhawks coach Luke Richardson said. “I thought, obviously, we pushed back in the second again, and you're always under duress when you're behind and trying to catch up. But I don't know why, I just think they were the hungrier team tonight and we let them be, so that's frustrating to see because I thought we wanted to try and take that excitement from last game and put it into tonight, and we just didn't do that.”

NOTES: The Blues are 10-0-0 this season when scoring first … Foligno played in his 1,100th NHL game.

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